SporTView

A weekend without football of any kind?

Well, sort of. No NFL games. (There’s the Senior Bowl and Arena Football) I think this two week break before the Super Bowl is specifically designed to help wean viewers off the game. You’ve been watching games probably every week since August…now they skip a week, and give you one final game next week. And if you’re really desperate, you can watch the Pro Bowl the week after.

There’s plenty of college basketball on Saturday, and Sunday sees an NBA tripleheader between ABC and ESPN.

The Red Sox dominated the airwaves this week (Until Friday, that is, after the Celtics traded Ricky Davis.) after their announcement last week that Theo Epstein would be returning to the organization. Last weekend, as well as Monday and Tuesday were filled with speculation of what Epstein’s role with the club would be. There was some talk of the potential acquisition of outfielder Coco Crisp, but the majority of time revolved around Epstein whether his return meant he had won a power struggle with Larry Lucchino.

Late on Tuesday afternoon the Red Sox issued a lengthy release outlining that Epstein would be returning to his role as General Manager. Wednesday was filled with reaction to the move. With the Patriots not in the Super Bowl and the Celtics and Bruins struggling through the winter, the Red Sox rule the airwaves.

The team spread themselves over the airwaves nicely on Wednesday, with Epstein and Larry Lucchino appearing on Dennis & Callahan, Jed Hoyer on Dale & Holley and John Henry on The Big Show. On the latter appearance, Henry said that he was shocked that Hoyer and Cherington were not introduced at “interim” Co-GM’s at that infamous press conference. Steve Burton said that an early draft of the press release that day had the word “interim” in it, but the official release contained no reference to the word. Epstein and Lucchino appeared on Mike Barnicle’s show on 96.9 WTKK FM, (A wiseguy wondered if Barnicle was just going to replay the Dennis & Callahan interview) and there was an appearance on ESPN 890 as well as on NESN and FSN. Michael Silverman in Thursday’s Herald put the totals at “19 publications, 11 television stations